This week’s Saturday Night Live played host to The National, who have quite frankly been popping up just about everywhere between their various television stints, and getting ready to embark on their North American tour. But when they took the stage this past Saturday night to perform “Graceless,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Trouble Will Find Me,” there was no question how after nearly a year since the release of their last album, Trouble Will Find Me, they’re still going strong. You can check out the performances below, and catch the band on tour this April with Warpaint and Portugal. The Man. (more…)

It wasn’t that long ago that we were announcing HAIM‘s 2014 North American tour dates. But for the Los Angeles based trio, this past weekend provided another landmark event ” their debut on Saturday Night Live. The episode saw the band performing “The Wire” before kicking it up a notch with “Don’t Save Me” and finally appearing in a clever, albeit slightly odd sketch featuring The Outfield’s “I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love Tonight,” with Hunger Games star and SNL host, Josh Hutcherson. Check out both performances along with the sketch right here.

For the ladies of HAIM, 2013 has been a pretty wild ride. Exploding onto the scene earlier in the year with their debut release, Days Are Gone, the trio has just announced a North American tour that runs from April to May of 2014. The 17-city tour will see stops in San Francisco, Nashville, Boston, and Minneapolis, before finishing up in Vancouver on May 24. Tickets go on sale November 22 but you can catch the band this weekend on Saturday Night Live, hosted by Josh Hutcherson. Check out dates below. (more…)

Pop superstar Justin Timberlake to the promotional efforts for his upcoming album The 20/20 Experience to the stage of Saturday Night Live over the weekend and this morning we have the performances streaming right here on OurStage!

Filling in as both host and musical guest, Timberlake performed “Suit & Tie” and new song “Mirrors” on the historical New York soundstage. Both renditions went off without a hitch, and if you ask us Timberlake once again proved why he’s the best in the business. You can view his performances below. (more…)

Between the recent success of Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, and now Denver-based act, The Lumineers, folk music has been making some pretty big waves lately. And with reason – after all, there’s something undeniably catchy and perhaps even endearing about tracks like The Lumineers’ “Ho Hey.”

Performing last weekend on the Saturday Night Live stage at NBC’s famed studio 8H, The Lumineers performed “Ho Hey,” along with a new track called, “Stubborn Love.” As catchy as their previous hit (dare we say more so?), it’s just a matter of time before you’ll hear “Stubborn Love” circulating radio stations across the nation. You can check out both performances right here.

From all we’ve seen and heard of fun., their live performances kill it. When it was announced they’d be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live for Nov. 3, we couldn’t wait. Their song choices? You guessed it: Radio success Some Nights, along with the newly released music video track, Carry On.

Although fun. kept the energy high with both performances, vocals on Some Nights, fell flat in sections and those used to chanting along with the recorded sound might be in for a bit of a shock. Carry On faired much better, with strong vocals and stellar performances by the entire band, ending their SNL debut on a high note.

Here today, gone today, one-hit wonders make the world of pop go round”but never for long.

The late ˜70s gave us a plethora of short-term disco stars who lived”and quickly died”by the groove, while the Tacos, the Kajagoogoos and the After the Fires of the early ˜80s, arrived wielding synthesizers and tressed for fifteen minutes and less of success. More recently, in 2005 and 2006, sensitive singer-songwriter guys Daniel Powter (Bad Day) and James Blunt (You’re Beautiful) helped usher out the pre-Rihanna/Katy Perry/Lady Gaga phase of pop.

In 2009, as a higher number of headlining newcomers than usual ascended to the summit (Lady Gaga, Jay Sean and Jason DeRülo, among them), at least one, Owl City”the act behind Fireflies”was bound to never fly anywhere near those heights again. And last year, with dance music dominating the airwaves more dramatically than it had since the aforementioned disco age, we got indie-pop with a beat for exactly one massive hit single, courtesy of Foster the People, who went all the way to No. 3 with Pumped Up Kicks.

Which of 2012’s first-timers so far are most likely to not still be succeeding by their next single? fun., the rock trio that recently spent six weeks at No. 1 with “We Are Young”? Or Gotye, who rode a quirky song and an even more oddball video all the way to the top?

At a quick glance, Gotye seems to have all of the trappings of a one-hit wonder. Interesting name that one might need a pronunciation key to get right? Check. Song that sounds unlike anything else on the radio? Check. A colorful video that jumps off the screen for reasons that have as much to do with the high concept as the song itself? Check.

On the subject of short-lived stardom, Andy Warhol said it best: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” Surely in 1968, when Warhol uttered that soon-to-be immortal prediction, he couldn’t have foreseen the emergence of the Internet and reality TV as the two biggest factors in the making and breaking of pop stars this side of MTV back when it was still all about music television.

Though it’s easier to get famous for fifteen minutes or less these days, it’s harder to stay that way when you’re made online. Bloggers everywhere seem to dedicate their Internet domains to the building up and tearing down of American idols. And here in cyberspace, the sometimes-adoring public is just as fickle: You don’t go viral without annoying a lot of people along the way.

Florence Welch must be in a state of extreme suspense right about now. And if she is, no one would understand how she feels better than Adele. At the dawn of 2011, Adele was in the very same position in which the lead singer of Florence + the Machine now finds herself, coming off a GRAMMY-nominated (and in Adele’s case, GRAMMY-winning) US debut album with extremely high expectations from people who are music fans, music writers and both (like yours truly). Would album No. 2 be career boom or bust?

For Adele, the rest is recent music history. Her sophomore album, 21, is the biggest seller of 2011 so far in the US, where it has launched two number one singles, song of the summer “Rolling in the Deep” and the big-boned ballad “Someone Like You.”

Florence, in a sense, is someone like Adele. Both British acts broke big in the States on TV (Adele on Saturday Night Live in 2008, Florence at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards); both were nominated for the Best New Artist GRAMMY (Adele won, Florence lost); both have worked extensively with producer Paul Epworth; both were cited by Beyoncé for influencing her during the making of 4; and both played major roles in making the pop charts safe once again for British blue-eyed soul.

But is this where the similarities end? Does Florence’s upcoming second album, still untitled as of mid-September, have the same potential as 21? The power to move continents of fans with its fiery emotion, bringing them to their knees and sending them crawling en masse to iTunes?